


The Too Big Parka

by Manuuk7



Category: Star Trek: Enterprise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-04
Updated: 2018-05-04
Packaged: 2019-05-02 05:45:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14537958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Manuuk7/pseuds/Manuuk7
Summary: Another shuttle crash...





	The Too Big Parka

**Author's Note:**

> Published as "Freezing (Reboot)" on FanFiction, also considered titling it "The Kit".

Just an interlude, I thought it was time for another very short story. This one takes place sometimes within the first season, before anyone starts getting sweet on anyone else. 

As usual, Star Trek and its characters belong to the corporation that last purchased all of their rights. I am borrowing them and will return them as soon as I'm done.

Xx

The shuttle clipped the top of a tree and its pilot ducked instinctively, even though he was inside the cabin and the debris couldn't get to him. The shock sent the shuttle careening wildly into another tree, and that was all he could do to keep it somewhat on an horizontal plane, engaging the stabilizers and still trying for at worst a controlled crash, at best an emergency landing. But the contact with the next tree threw the craft even more out of alignment straight into another tree top and the vessel ricocheted from tree top to tree top, losing altitude the whole time. Its speed was still enough to shear off the trees it encountered, though eventually the loss of engine power and the absorption of kinetic energy by all those trees meant it was losing speed and it would only be a matter of time before a tree trunk became too large an obstacle to go through.

Fortunately, the forest stopped all of sudden and the shuttle found itself back in open space, having gained another chance at a landing of some kind. It was however a case of frying pan into the fire as the open space it had reached was bordered on all sides by tall cliffs and carpeted by a lake of jagged rocks that would make any kind of landing impossibly difficult and certainly deadly. Travis couldn't think of a worse situation. He quickly computed that if he somehow brought the shuttle back to a horizontal plane, slowed its speed to a double-digit, and let it drop like an anvil, there was a small chance the craft would end up balanced precariously over the tips of rocks, like a table top on table legs. The analogy was deficient enough to make him cringe. But he really had very little choice. Either it worked or they made a fiery full-blown crash landing in a field of sharp boulders, there wouldn't be enough pieces left for Enterprise to find.

"Brace yourself" he called back to the cabin, knowing that the warning was superfluous but it made him feel better.

It almost worked. He did manage to lower the shuttle speed to that of a fast-moving car, and he did bring the shuttle back a few degrees off the horizontal, not many degrees off but enough that it hid the rocky projection in the shadows of a larger one, that reached out and ripped through the side of the shuttle like an old-style can-opener. Luckily it didn't break all the way through to the cabin. Unluckily, the contact between flying shuttle and immovable object threw the shuttle into an unexpected 360. Travis managed to maintain control over the vehicle, too tense to even swear, hoping against all hopes that they would pull out of the loop and he would be able to go on with his plan.

It almost worked.

He would never know if in the end the vessel encountered another sharp boulder in its uncontrolled slide or if it was its belly that caught on the rocks below. But suddenly the shuttle was on its side, and just as he was going to succeed in righting it out something else was in its way. There was a violent shock, an explosive percussion that hurt his ears, the world spun uncontrollably, and then there was nothing more.

There were no witnesses to the shrieking noise of the outcrop as it carved through the shuttle or the explosive encounter of vessel and rocks. Nobody saw the flume of black smoke that rose from the crash site and slowly dispersed in the cerulean sky. No life forms came by to check for a hasty meal. Silence fell again, the sky cleared, nothing remained except for two halves of what was once a shuttle wrapped around a tall rock jutting like a snag tooth against the sky.

Nothing moved.

xxx

Perhaps it was the distant drip of the coolant finding its way out of the pipes or the soft wind brushing by the broken craft or perhaps enough time had passed for consciousness to creep back, there are times when it is impossible to tell why one woke up. The world came back together in piecemeal fashion, first the blinking of an eye, then the slow raising of a hand, the fiery pain of the restraints biting into the soft flesh of shoulders, the surprise mixed with relief that the protective shell of the chair had held.

T'Pol finished waking up with a gasp and a head jerk, then sat where she was, which didn't take much effort considering the safety harness was holding her steadfastly to the chair, and reflected. She would need to report to Starfleet that while the new restraints were incomparably superior to the old ones, which would not have held given the violence of the accident, the next improvement should see their biometric adaptation to the body they protected. Hers had been a one-size-fits-all set and while they had adequately protected her from certain death she could tell from the pain in her shoulders and her side that they had imperfectly fulfilled their function.

Her second observation was that she could see from the sky that they were in the middle of the planet's extended light period, which meant they had many hours to complete survival tasks. They. Though she could not see Ensign Mayweather anywhere around. The conclusions that imposed themselves were corollaries. She could readily see the sky because the front of the shuttle had been sheared off, a fact which was not lost on her. Ensign Mayweather was nowhere to be found because the front of the shuttle had been sheared off, and that was where he had been sitting. Her first task after getting out of the safety harness would be to find Ensign Mayweather.

She could not see where laid the section of the shuttle that had been sheared off yet she experienced no apprehension nor hope about the helmsman being dead or alive. If he were dead, there was nothing to be done. If he were alive, his condition would dictate the next steps. He was, like Schrodinger's cat, both. If she had been Human, she might have mused how appropriate the analogy to a cat was for the long-limbed helmsman, but being Vulcan she knew that the ensign was not a cat and it would have been illogical to compare a Human to a cat.

The release mechanism for the safety harness yielded under her grip and she was able to push it off her, wincing as it bit anew into her shoulders. These were superficial wounds, not to be paid attention to. The pain in her side was more of a challenge, especially as one of the belts had gone directly over her heart. But the protective ribcage had held, though it was cracked along the side. She pushed the pain away, blocking the neural pathways, and got up though with a sudden intake of breath. The back of the shuttle was jammed between two sharp rocky outcrops, held almost horizontal, proof that the helmsman's plan, which he had liberally communicated as he was attempting it, Humans were universally striking in their need to exteriorize emotionally, had been sound even if it had not worked as planned. A small expanse of sandy soil separated the boulders holding the back of the shuttle between them. The distance to the ground could easily be bridged with a jump, if one's ribs were in perfect condition. Instead, she gingerly proceeded down one of the boulder on the sides though that required so many contortions and so much extra effort that in the end it might have been almost easier to jump and deal with the pain.

She only needed clear the broken up ship by a few yards before she saw the front of the shuttle, laying on its side. At least it remained somewhat whole, which increased the probabilities that the ensign was still alive. A loud explosion made her flinch and duck, protected from the shockwave by the boulders. She blinked back towards the half-shuttle where she had just awoken, which now existed only as a charred husk, before quickly taking cover inside the front of the shuttle when the first piece of hull broke the ground not far from her. Finally there was a lull in the staccato of shrapnel-like fragments raining on the side of the shuttle that now formed its roof, then it stopped entirely. She could proceed.

She found to the helmsman still securely fastened to his chair, it was the chair that had been knocked loose in the crash. She bent over him to free him of the safety harness. He was unconscious, blood running down his face from a head wound, seemingly otherwise untouched as his frame was the right size for the restraints. The hard shell had avoided bodily damage. He was inert but his pupils retracted. She laid him flat on his back, checking that there were no injuries to limbs or bones.

Finally they were laid out on the sand, he prone and unconscious, her sitting cross-legged, her arm pressed to her side to lighten the pain from her ribcage, once again reflecting. Enterprise would find them, of that there was no doubt, the captain alerted when they didn't come back from their exploratory mission and knowing exactly where they went. The question was whether it would find them in time. It would take an estimated twenty-three hours for another shuttle to arrive to the planet. In ten hours, a thermodynamic barrier of highly reflective clouds would envelop the planet and plunge it into icy darkness. The clouds and the variability of the temperature over a fifty-two hour cycle were the reasons they had come to the planet, she on a mission of exploration ahead of Enterprise's arrival and Ensign Mayweather delegated by Archer to fly her there, when one of their engines failed. Now they would have the unwelcome opportunity to do first-hand research on how the extremes of temperature prevented all life from forming on the planet, and quickly saw to any life that just happened to stop by.

She looked at the charred hull that had been the shuttle, or at least part of it, the part that held the emergency supplies and survival gear, possibly the source of the explosion, they were carrying heating equipment after all. All she had been able to find in the front of the shuttle was a first aid kit and some piloting gear, no food or supplies except for two phasers. The communication array had been ripped apart, they had no way to alert Enterprise.

Remembering the phasers she got up to get them, all the time weighing potential scenarios for the best outcome, the one that would optimize their chances of survival. The fact that Ensign Mayweather may be in a coma was neutral. It would have been of greater import had the meteorological profile of the planet been less daunting. Their overriding concern was to find shelter. Her overriding concern was to find shelter. It would be a delusory protection against the cold but they had to try and stay alive until Enterprise arrived. Even if survival was technically impossible on the planet, it would be illogical not to try.

She started surveying the area around with an eye to finding shelter. The boulders and jagged outcrops littering the plain bottom where they had crash were obviously the erosion product of a massive thunmyr plateau. Thunmyr would swell and shrink with the heat and cold cycle, becoming brittle and separating into huge sharp-sided chunks. The erosion process carved channels within the solid rock, some large enough to serve as caves. The largest thunmyr boulders would still be in the process of being broken down into smaller ones, if they were big enough they might provide a shelter of sort. She looked at Travis, made sure he was somewhat protected from the sun, unsure whether the pleasant temperature might be too warm for a Human, and took off, keeping an eye out for any jagged boulder that towered over her. In the end she found an adequate one by chance, almost missing the low lying hole as she walked past before retracing her steps and looking into it. She had to crawl on her belly to go in, which was a positive sign. The space inside was large enough and cracks that extended to the sky above her head said that a fire would be fine, if there were the materials for a fire anywhere. They would not die right away from the cold. If they could hold off long enough for Enterprise to arrive...

First, she had to bring Travis over though. She figured she could do it in five hundred yards chunks, it would take three lift-and-carries to bring him to safety. Pushing him into a seated position, she lifted him to a standing position, locking his knees out. Her Vulcan strength was helpful as she maneuvered in front of him and let him fall against her back. Pulling his wrists up so that he laid better on her back was a strain on her ribs and moving him exhausted every muscle in her body. She had not planned for how taxing it would be. Even though she was much stronger than a Human male, he was a tall man and the first two carries used up most of her strength. The pressure on her shoulders was painful and the cracked ribcage insistent that she stop the abuse. She laid him on the soft sand with another five hundred yards to go, dropping next to him, cradling her side and breathing hard. Before tackling the last stretch, she walked back to the shuttle, carrying back everything she could find that might become an aid to survival. Eventually she couldn't carry him all the way, had to gently lay him down halfway then go back to the shuttle and strip the safety harness, using it to drag him the rest of the way then through the narrow opening. Finally they were inside the shelter with the supplies she had gathered and she had blocked the entrance with the broken chair. Anything to give them a fighting chance against the cold.

The ensign was still unresponsive and she laid him close to the cobbles she had gathered into a pile. Phaser fire would be enough to heat up the rocks, at least until they depleted the energy packs. She had already calculated that if the energy packs were full, both phasers together would give them another eight to ten hours. Enterprise would arrive in thirteen hours. Not enough but better than nil.

She couldn't see the cloud cover roll over at the speed of a galloping horse but the light disappeared in a couple of minutes. There was no slow gradation from light to dark, no dusk. With the darkness came the cold. The space they were in offered a little bit of protection and she waited until she started shivering to fire at the cobbles, aware that Ensign Mayweather showed no signs of being cold. It was a fine balance between preserving their energy source and preserving her. Logic indicated that she was necessary to the ensign's survival.

The ensign stirred and she went to his side. His eyelids fluttered for a while then he looked at her, raising a hand to his head as he moaned in pain. "What happened?"

Her eyebrows reacted in confusion. Did he mean what happened to the shuttle or what happened that made him wake up in a rock chamber? She decided to answer both. "The shuttle crashed and I found this shelter for us. You have a head wound and were unconscious."

"Sub-Commander..." His eyes were looking around, taking in the glowing cobbles, the sparse supplies, the absence of cold weather gear. "The shuttle?"

She responded to the unspoken question. "It exploded shortly after we landed. The shock of the crash may have caused a disruption in one of the heating units."

He nodded at that. He would have had other questions, such as if the shuttle exploded why were they still alive, but his head hurt too much. He closed his eyes again and let sleep overtake him.

T'Pol waited a few seconds by his side, then realizing he was asleep went back to her protective vigil by the cobbles.

As the hours passed,the cold slowly but steadily grew to bone-crushing and the heat from the stones was no longer enough. Vulcans were ill equipped to deal with the cold and she could no longer shiver adequately. If she used the phaser more often they would run out of energy faster. She was considering the probabilities of success of various usage scenarios when a voice cut through her focus. "You're cold." She looked up to see the ensign staring at her. She was huddled onto herself, chest pressed into her knees, arms around her legs. She didn't bother to hide the shaking of her limbs. She couldn't have if she'd tried. "The temperature is unpleasant." Even her voice was shaking.

"Listen, I'm cold too but obviously not as badly as you." He wasn't sure if he should say what came next, her being a sub-commander and a Vulcan, but his dad had taught him that survival required cutting through to what mattered and what mattered was that she was obviously freezing. "If you come and lay next to me, my body heat will keep you warmer." Trying to figure if she would claim he, a junior officer, had made a pass at her, a senior officer, but then realizing she was a Vulcan and he certainly was in no shape so that was another thing that didn't matter.

She looked at him without saying anything. Travis thought he would become terribly self-conscious if his head didn't hurt so much that he didn't really care. Then to his great surprise, she got up and walked over to him. He almost reflexively scooted over to make room for her but since he was lying on the sand there was really no reason too. She laid down between him and the cobbles and he pressed his body against her back, wrapping an arm around her. The shaking didn't stop but it was no longer extreme. She fired the phaser at the cobbles and basked in the glimmer of heat that enveloped her for a few minutes. Too quickly the stones stopped glowing.

She heard from the slowing of his respiration that the helmsman had gone back to sleep, a welcome development as she no longer had to spend energy on maintaining her shields. She kept firing at the cobbles on schedule, every twenty minutes. The bright glow stole another few minutes from the relentless onslaught of the cold. Being Vulcan she didn't have experience with the effects of cold. She didn't feel herself slipping into the frosty hands of sleep. The stones stopped glowing.

xxx

"I found it!" The crewman at the science station looked up from the console. "There's a metallic mass, not native to the planet. I have the coordinates."

Finally. Archer looked over at Trip. He hadn't been looking forward to having to explain to Vulcan how their sub commander had gone missing. Trip signaled his relief with two raised eyebrows. Not that he cared too deeply about the Vulcan, she was a pain in every sense of the word, but he didn't like to see his best friend so worried. And he was concerned about the fate of young Travis. They all felt protective where the young man was concerned.

"Patch the coordinates to the central computer. I'm taking a shuttle down." T'Pol and Travis better have a good reason why they didn't come back to Enterprise in time. Hopefully something better than she got so caught up into what she was studying she didn't see time go by. "Trip, you're coming with me. Lieutenant Reed, you have the con." Trip exchanged glances with Reed. Why did he have to be part of the rescue effort? All he did was fight with the Sub Commander or had Jon forgotten that?

Reed came to his rescue, now that was the mark of a true friend. "Captain, I should be the one going with you."

"Understood Lieutenant but if what kept them is a mechanical issue, Trip can fix it." He turned to Trip "Survival gear, cold weather, the works. Use the list of supplies they took with them." Trip nodded. They were all well aware of the conditions on the planet, which was now deep in its freeze cycle. At least they didn't have to worry about anything hostile. No life form could survive more than an entire cycle. At least nothing of a size that could present a risk to them. "Should I get a couple of security personnel?" It might be good to have an extra set of hands or two, depending on what they found.

"Yes, just make sure there's enough room for everyone and the survival gear." Travis and T'Pol would be safe inside the shuttle but the rescue team may have to go outside. There was no point limiting the gear.

The ride through the thermal cloud barrier was rough and bumpy, the shuttle shaking on all sides as it was buffeted by lightning strikes and strong winds, its engine straining against the dense air. All of a sudden they broke through and found themselves flying freely into the blackest night, not a star to be seen, the heavy cloud barrier absorbing the heat from the planet. The outside felt cold just looking at it. "Do you see anything?" Archer asked his co-pilot, almost adding 'Travis' mechanically at the end before he remembered this was not Travis.

"I couldn't see my own hands in this," the young woman replied. Yes, definitely not Travis.

The light beams from the shuttle had trouble cutting through the night. They were hovering over the coordinates from the central computer, and still couldn't see the reassuring metallic glow of the shuttle. "Make a broad circuit" Archer told the co-pilot while he swiveled his chair towards the back of the shuttle. "Trip?"

The engineer was at the sensors, staring at the message they were sending back with a sinking feeling. "There is a metallic object" he replied "but it is not big enough to be the shuttle." He looked up form the sensor at Archer, both of them scowling in confusion.

"Are you sure?"

Trip bit back on the retort that automatically came to his mind and bent back to the sensors. His head jerked up quickly "It's just not big enough."

At that, there was silence in the shuttle as Archer turned to him to look at him incredulously, letting the co-pilot handle the craft for a while as he slunk over to where Trip was, looking into the sensors in turn. "Any idea?"

"I can't see well enough to tell, it could be a piece of the shuttle." A lull in the conversation as the news sunk in.

"We can't land anywhere around here," Archer was thinking out loud. "Not with all these rocks. Crewman Bossette, circle around the coordinates Trip gives you, let's try to see if we find anything."

They did, not on the first try, or the second try, but as the shuttle angled for a third turn, the beam caught the edge of something black that was not rock in nature. Soon, the shuttle was hovering around the charred husk, the silence in the cabin deafening. Archer could not believe it. Was that it? Did he just lose two crew members to the vagaries of a stupid mechanical accident? What had happened? It didn't seem it could be an attack, nobody was around. There must have been engine troubles. Unless there was a fault with the heating units. He finally found his voice back.

"Trip, widen the sensor readings, see if you can find any biosign." He opened the intercom. "Shuttle to Enterprise."

The connection was irritatingly static-y, any clear back and forth obscured by the same meteorological phenomenon that prevented them from using the transporter. "…Reed…here"

"See if you can locate any biosigns on the planet." He didn't think it necessary to add the most expedient would be to look for Vulcan biosigns. Hoshi would remind Reed if he didn't think of it. "Bossette, extend the circles, slow wide sweeps each time, let's see if we find them." He had purposedly changed from 'let's see if we can find them' to 'let's see if we find them'. He was certain they were around, it was just a matter of time.

The shuttle intercom beeped at almost the same time as Trip announced "I've got something!" Archer palmed the link open.

"Reed… sir, …Vulcan…coord…" Archer sighed in frustration. "You've got a Vulcan biosign? Send the coordinates directly to the flight console." He shut off the com, he didn't have time to waste trying to guess at what Reed was saying. In a couple of minutes, the shuttle was hovering over a large slab of rock, almost the size of the shuttle bay.

Trip looked up from the sensors. "They're in there somewhere."

"D'you see a door?" Archer snapped back, irritated. Of course, they were in there somewhere. Those were the coordinates.

"If we activate the infrared readings, it will show where the cold gets in," Bossett offered in the silent cabin.

"Good thinking, Bossett. Trip?"

"I'm on it." It took a few more minutes before Trip came back to the group. "There is a small intake of cold air in the North-NorthWest quadrangle, close to the ground."

"Bossett, get there and see how close you can get us to the ground. Then you and Capicco, go find someplace to land and wait for instructions there. Everybody else, suit up, we're going down."

It was a six feet drop from the shuttle to the narrow band of sand that ran between the boulders, not an issue for any of the three in the party, even with the furry parkas and the oxygen masks. Trip was still cussing from finding out the quartermaster had messed up his supplies and given him a 2XL parka. What was he going to do with a 2Xl parka. He was floating in it, cold filtering through the wrist and bottom laces that he just couldn't get tight enough. A freezing wind was buffeting the party, the absence of moisture fortunately preventing the formation of ice or snow, everything that the cold touched turning white as it automatically drained the moisture away.

There was a sense of rejoicing when they discovered that the entrance to the inside had been plugged by the hardshell case of a shuttle chair, confirming that their crew members were alive. One by one they slithered into the cave, warmer than the outside but still in the frost range, peeling off their masks and watching the vapor swirl from their breath as they beat the chill off stiffened garments. Then they lit up their torches and saw the two bodies away from the entrance, next to a nest of cobbles.

Trip stopped in his tracks, confused. The bodies were that of two elderly people, their hair and eyebrows whitened by the weight of their ages. Archer was rushing past him, explaining "it's the cold" as he went by.

Trip shook himself, did a double take and realized the old man was Travis and the old woman was T'Pol, their hair whitened by frost. Both of them were unconscious. He pulled out his tricorder, half afraid of what he was going to find. "They're alive!" he yelled at Archer.

"Help me!" Archer already had his communicator out, was calling Phlox for advice, swearing at the poor quality of the communication. While he was gathering health advice, Trip and the other security guards were unfolding limbs and laying the enterprise crew flat, then taking out the emergency heat source and bringing the ambient temperature back above freezing. It was not going fast enough.

Archer came over to Trip. "Phlox says Travis is in a coma, bad blow to the head, T'Pol must have brought him here. He says it's actually a good thing, the cold hasn't had that much impact on him. But Vulcans are very susceptible to the cold. We need to bring the Sub-commander internal temperature back up quickly, she's close to freezing."

"Hypothermia?" Trip responded.

"Well past that, according to Phlox." Archer turned to the security guard with them. "Do you have the emergency supplies." The man silently proferred two folded emergency thermal blankets. "Let's wrap them up!" Archer commanded.

They did, and kept a close eye on how things were going. There was no choice but to wait. Taking them out into the cold in their state would be sealing their fate. But even wrapped in a cocoon of thermic blanket, things were not proceeding fast enough, as Phlox let them know at the next checkpoint, at least not for T'Pol.

"We have to find something else." Archer commented to Trip. The engineer didn't respond, already bent on finding a solution. He once again tightened the collar of his parka against the cold air seeping through around his neck. That thing was big enough for two people.

Two people.

His first thought was that the Vulcan would never tolerate it, with the smell and what not, and especially it being him, her constant tormentor.

But then the Vulcan was unconscious, wasn't she. This could actually be rich.

Before long, he was seated against the wall of the chamber, T'Pol gathered in his arms, sitting on his lap, her legs stretched over his legs, and then Archer helped him zip the parka back up over her, wrapping the two of them in its protective layer. And they waited. After what seemed to be an hour, she finally moved, instinctively snuggling closer against the warmth of his chest. He chuckled softly. Her entire head was below the neckline of the parka. It felt like he had brought some wild kit back home, safely ensconced between his T-shirt and his skin. She would hate it so much once she woke up.

xx

It was one of the more unpleasant nights any of them had spent, the unrelenting cold seeping through everything, the emergency heating elements barely able to keep frost out of the air, just waiting for the thermobaric clouds to be gone and the sun to shine down again. Finally, light seeped in the cave from the cracks way up above their heads and Archer told a waiting Bossett to hightail it to Enterprise and bring back the doctor.

Trip was starting to feel really toasty in his parka and in any case he needed to move really badly. He proceeded to unzip the heavy coat, planning to move his guest without waking her up. That didn't work out very well, however, and she suddenly sat bolt upright in his lap, eyeing him with a mixture of disgust and surprise. "And I thought you'd never wake up!" he greeted her, half in jest and half in relief, "but I need to stretch my legs, you know." Warned by Phlox about cold-induced narcolepsia in Vulcans, he caught her just as she fell off his lap, soft-limbed from sleep. Archer came to help him and they laid her on one of the thermal blankets.

But when Trip came back from his foray outside, she was shaking with cold, even asleep and even wrapped in the blanket and even though it was not cold. Trip went back to his seating vigil by the wall, a Vulcan in his lap, this time she was the only one wearing an oversize parka, disappearing in the folds of fabric. She coughed once, made as if to wake up, but soon slipped under the waves of sleep.

Suddenly, the makeshift door blocking the entrance was pushed aside and Phlox wiggled in followed by four medics and two stretchers. Archer eyed him with surprise "I thought we were transporting them?"

"We still are" the doctor answered "but I'd rather start care early." He was scanning T'Pol, brought out a hypo, telling Trip as he injected it "For the pain."

"For the pain?" Trip was flabbergasted. What about the cold?

But Phlox was already answering in a running commentary. "The articular capsule is cracked. Some superficial shoulder wounds otherwise. We need to get her aboard, stabilize her core temperature." That, he understood. He felt guilty that he hadn't known she was in pain, hoped he didn't increase whatever damage there was.

T'Pol coughed again and Phlox looked up sharply. "Has she been coughing?"

"Just once." Trip wasn't sure why that was meaningful.

Phlox scowled and injected another hypo. Then he was at Travis' side.

xx

Trip didn't go to Sickbay to find out how the Sub-Commander was doing. Archer told him that Travis had emerged from his coma, most likely cold-induced, and would be released to quarters the same day. He didn't talk about T'Pol and Trip didn't ask, figuring they had saved her life, she would recover and then go on to do whatever Vulcan thing people like her did and that would be the end of it. Better not make of it more than it was.

He didn't ask when she didn't show up on the bridge the next morning, figuring that it must take at least twenty-four hours to recover from hypothermia.

He didn't ask when she didn't show up on the bridge the morning after that, figuring that it must take her people forty-eight hours to recover from hypothermia.

Which didn't explain why he was at the Sickbay doors after the end of his shift, asking Phlox how she was doing and whether he could see her.

Phlox oblingingly brought him to one of the biobeds, isolated behind its white curtains. His first thought was that she wasn't looking well at all. He looked around for Phlox for answers but the Denobulan had already gone.

She inclined her head when she saw him. "I understand you saved my life."

He blushed. She must not remember her reaction when she woke up in his lap. "I just wanted to see, ah, how you're doing."

For once she didn't insult his intelligence by pretending she was fine. "I will recover," she admitted. "The doctor said that the pneumonia will resolve itself over the next couple of days."

"I'm sorry, I didn't know." He felt bad that he hadn't asked or that he hadn't been told, though he consciously knew there was no reason he should be told. Actually, privacy and all, he probably should not be told. And would not have been told even if he asked.

"There was no reason for you to know." Still, the answer felt like a slap.

"Well, it seems like we're in agreement, then." Trip felt like a fool, and got annoyed that whatever interaction he had with her ended up with him feeling like a fool. "I'll leave you be."

She looked at him more closely. "Is there a reason you came to see me?"

He felt himself blush, tried to get back to a humorous groove which would make it harder for her to know what he was thinking and perhaps succeed in hiding his feelings from himself. "Nah... I thought I should come and apologize for the smell." He grinned.

He felt foolish when she obviously didn't understand what he was referring to. "Ah.. well." She always had a knack for leaving him hanging, like the time he had offered his hand for a handshake. "I'll see you on the bridge." He turned on his heel and was gone.

T'Pol stared at the empty space where he had been, one eyebrow raised in puzzlement at the illogical behavior. Why did he apologize for the smell? She remembered very well that he had bodily protected her from the cold the entire night, Phlox had told her she wouldn't have survived otherwise. His smell was not unpleasant. It was very strong, like all Human smells, but not unpleasant.

Trip's determined step slowed as he got farther from Sickbay. She was always so infuriating. Why did he even pretend he cared? He had been a colleague helping another colleague in need. That was all. Nothing more than that. It would all be back to business between the two of them from now on. As if nothing ever really happened.

But no matter how much he tried, he couldn't chase away how sweet the feeling of holding a kit close to his chest.

xx

THE END


End file.
